C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

Eskimos at Aklavik 61Drums used at the Inuitdances, held ~ WH.B.Hoare (left) and Rev.Canon Edward Hester(right), 1922. MiriamGreen Ellis. M. G. EllisCollection, University ofAlberta Archives, Box 1,no. 226.Lawyers began to argue points in semi-legal fashion at that point and I closedmy notebooks, becoming absorbed in watching the human faces. When theverdict was given the murderer went off with his friends to celebrate; the prosecutorand I followed them into what seemed to be a large village hall, but in a fewmoments it was so full of people that it became a small room. The murderer wasthe life and soul of that evening party, being also solo dancer in one of the mostamazing muscular feats that I have ever seen. During his execution of that primitivesolo seal-dance I was transported back through the ages into cavemanmentality, becoming unconscious of the crowd about me.The dance was improvised, mimetic and spontaneous. There were norehearsed nor formal steps. Ikagena began by beating, with a wooden stick, a flat,one-sided drum held by a handle. In a few moments he was no longer Ikagena,nor even a human being, he had become a seal, bending forward and shufflingsideways, with every muscle rippling in an almost fluid movement; he seemed tobe endowed with flippers and encased in blubber. Curious groans and roars andhisses of encouragement rose from the audience, but however uncouth werethose sounds they were obviously used for expressing delight in this scenewherein a man had become a mammal before their very eyes. I have always wishedI had been able to enshrine something of that experience in words but I could